A Way Out of This Nightmare
by IfUKnewUCouldNotFail
Summary: Unreal City/Fight The Ship Episode Tag. Alicia lay in her sick bay rack, numb to the world at large, surrounded by the wounded victors of the battle, ranks in which she could no long belong… Warning: Spoilers for the Season 2 premiere. Angsty fic/dark themes/Mentions of suicide.


Disclaimer: Nope, still don't own it…

LSLSLS

They had brought her back _here_. Back to the Nathan James. The ship that had been her home, but was now the ship she, or at least her name, had betrayed, along with the rest of the human race, so completely. It was the last place she should be.

The _absolute_ last place she deserved to be…

She was the enemy! Couldn't they see that? Alicia was still semi aware of her surroundings, not yet completely lost to the churning ocean of guilt that was fast dragging her further and further under, never to see the light of day again.

She saw when Lt. Green sat down beside her. She felt when his hand reached out and touched hers. But she felt no warmth from the gesture…only icy numbness, the same frost that was permeating her to her very core. She was numb to all but the immense soul destroying guilt.

It didn't matter she had known not of it. It didn't matter that she had not agreed with it, tried to stop it even... No, none of that mattered, for she had failed anyway. All she had achieved was getting shot, and becoming a burden to the mission of those who were _actually_ saving people. The people who should not have wasted valuable time saving _her_ …

She had been content to die there on that platform, or as content as one could be knowing that their only legacy was going to be one that people despised, with a name that people would be well within their rights to spit on.

Yes, she should have died back there in Baltimore. She had only pleaded and begged the Captain so he would hopefully believe that her actions in all that had transpired had not been _deliberately_ traitorous in nature. That she had not known the facts, and had not agreed with them when she had.

She just hadn't wanted to die with him thinking _so very_ badly of her. Like maybe she had been with _them_ all along, leading them to their slaughter… The thought had suffocated her, and so she had begged, but for some of his understanding in her moment of death, not for life…

She had just wanted him to know, to think not entirely badly of her. Everyone else was a lost cause, she knew that. Even if _only_ by associated, Alicia knew she was as guilty as sin.

Her Mother's crimes far too heinous for her to even contemplate the thought of ever being able to flee from their reach.

In this extreme case, guilt by association was still _very much_ guilt.

She could hear Green talking, she didn't acknowledge him, she couldn't. She felt like her body was as frozen on the outside as she felt on the inside. She processed some of what he was saying however, and it only made her blood run colder…

 _'_ _Not your fault…'_

 _'_ _You didn't know…'_

 _'_ _You did all you could…'_

Not true, none of it. It was her fault! It was her _Mother_ that had committed _genocide_ for crying out loud! The woman who gave her life had taken so _so_ many of them… And had done so with a smile on her face. How could she be innocent when _that_ was where she came from?

And her Mother had certainly seemed to believe that she was just like her too, that she would agree with her, that she would 'come around' in time. She could see it in her Mother's face when she had so calmly and rationally spoken…about mass murder. Her Mother had really thought that she too would happily play along in the plan that swapped the qualified survival of the few for the murders of the many.

But the most shameful thing about the whole situation was that she _had_ known! Maybe not the details… But from the beginning the Intel that her Mother was apparently the savior of the people of Baltimore had sat very uncomfortably with Alicia. The loving daughter in her had wanted it to be true _so badly_ , but the soldier who knew the woman had had doubts, a lot of doubts, and to her immense shame she had listened to the daughter in her and belayed her duty as a soldier.

She had kept quiet. She had allowed her people … _her friends_ … to walk headlong into danger unwarned. She had been so stupid! Everything about this crisis, since the first outbreak of the virus, had taught her that events like these did not make kinder gentler people out of more than slightly amoral ones!

Events like these forced people to choose a side, a direction, a mission, a purpose. And then those energies were directed to either of the two extreme directions.

Good or evil.

She had known this to be true. And she had known the woman who had raised her. Her mother had never had a tear or kind word for the less fortunate. She had called it strength to be so hard, and thus Alicia had always been seen as weak, for seeming to actually care…and for other unforgiveable failings…

The point was that she had had all the information walking in. The type of woman her Mother was, and the sparkling sitrap the woman had been peddling as the truth. The two pieces of information had not computed, not at all. And still she had remained silent. The little girl in her had chosen a disastrous time to again try and see and hope for the best in a woman that had so frequently only shown her the worst.

It was an unforgiveable failing and members of her crew, her friends, people she served with and had sworn to protect, had died because of it…because of _her_. She would never wash their blood from her hands, never ever… And that was without thinking and counting all those desperate innocent souls that her Mother, her _blood_ , had malevolently lured to their death with the promise of life.

Even the _Captain's_ _wife_ …

Yet another fresh wave of soul wrenching grief overtook Alicia at the thought of the woman she had never met, and now never would… How could the Captain have allowed her to be brought back here? To lay here fraudulently amongst the survivors that had fought so valiantly for their victory over her Mother.

They had nothing to feel shame for, only pride in their victory. They were of course all saddened by the terrible truths their hope coming into this had been replaced with, but they had no need to feel guilty. The only part they had played in all this was in the redemption of the ship and its people, and the people of Baltimore.

It was a smaller group of people, those that were still living… who were left to feel the shame for their part in so many senseless deaths…and Alicia was one of them.

As she lay here now, surrounded by people whose presence and mission she insulted with _her_ presence, she couldn't help but feel that her Mother, with her final act, had actually finally done something right.

She had killed herself.

It had been the Captain that had 'broken' the news to her. Just like she had not wanted the Captain to think she had prior _specific_ knowledge of the atrocities of Baltimore, he had not wanted her to think that he had deliberately had her Mother killed, even under the circumstances. He was clear in his explanation that he had offered her a chance of survival if she surrendered. She had surrendered, but had chosen not to be taken alive.

He really needn't have bothered to try and placate her. Admittedly Alicia was numb to almost all of it lying here, but she suspected that even if she wasn't, her Mother's not timely enough death would not be chief amongst her reasons for losing sleep, regardless of the manner of it. If fact, from what she could still feel, what her brain had not shut off from her conscious mind in a vain attempt at self-preservation, was more than a little relief!

Was it unforgivably terrible to be relieved your Mother was dead? Probably… And yet how could one not be relieved that a mass murderer was dead and could prey no more on the innocent?

Yes, with her final act her Mother had done the right thing. Obviously Alicia knew she had in no way done it for the right reasons. Of course not. It was spiteful pride, just plain being a really sore loser, and not that her Mother would ever have admitted it, but also largely because of fear.

Not fear of death obviously, she would bet her Mother died believing that the pearly gates would be opened wide for her, as delusional as she was about her actions. No, it was fear of not being the one in control, having others _'inferior's'_ judging her, having them in charge of her fate, which lets face it, could not have been anything other than eventual execution, after the show of a trial of course…

No, Amy Granderson had done the right thing in beginning the process of removing the stain of her name and her blood from the earth.

Now it was up to Alicia to finish the job.

She would not allow anyone to suffer the malady of having a living-breathing reminder of such evil.

No one would suffer for having to look upon one who had been so close to it all, who could only ever be a harsh reminder of a time that they would all soon set about trying to forget.

No, she too would be gone and then to hopefully fade into forgotten history.

It was the kindest thing to do for all those she loved, but all those she could not possibly ask to love her back…

Not now…

Not ever again…

THE END

A/N: OMG! What an epic premiere! This is just the first of quite a few tags I have in mind. And Yes, I know it's quite dark and somber but it's where my muse took me and seriously, it's not like _any_ of the characters are turning cartwheels in the P-way's at the moment…but hopefully things will get _a bit_ brighter soon. ;-) There are just so many places to go from these mega episodes! ( _And_ more than a few places _I wish_ they had gone! ;-p) But no matter, I still have hope for the rest of the season and we all still have fanfic to live out our thoughts, desires and predictions for the show! ;-D Leave a word, would love to hear from you all. :-D


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